French Country House Library

Materials: 60 Billy / Benno Bookcases

Description: Faced with a 11m x 4m landing which had been curtained off at either end as bedrooms we wanted to create a ‘built in’ library / office. With a 3.3m ceiling height there was an opportunity to build an impressive floor to ceiling installation to house a large book collection and 1500 DVD’s.

The house benefits from being symmetrical the landing has 4 doors – 3 to bedrooms and one from the staircase. The doorways are just over a meter wide and so there was an opportunity to use the Billy bridging units above the doors.

So, off to IKEA and ordered 60, yes 60 units to put together and install. 15 full height units each side with half height units mounted upside down on top. 6 Benno cases were cut in half, as were 4 bridging units to fill the space.

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Jules IKEAHacker "I am Jules, the engine behind IKEAHackers and the one who keeps this site up and running. My mission is to capture all the wonderful, inspiring, clever hacks and ideas for our much loved IKEA items".

57 Responses to French Country House Library

This looks great! What color are the Billys, they do not look like any of the finishes they offer. I am thinking of using the Billy as a template and recreating them with good plywood, and customize the widths, but still make them to come apart when I move again. Not sure as yet.

For non-book lovers, this library might be a nightmare. Why bother investing that much brainpower to re-design a library if one doesn’t want to read books (Kindle doesn’t count.)

Number two: the hype about the Billy bookcase is that its clean, simple lines and mode of construction make it versatile enough to suit different styles of decor. The whole point of this website is to show IKEA devotees what can be done to customize stock IKEA units.

For those who are not crazy about Billy products, well then this is not the site for them.

Quite a large chunk of change (has to be at least 10,000 USD) for a wall full of veneered particle board shelves. You could have used real wood for that cost. It’s not a hack if it costs multiple thousands of dollars to accomplish, and no offense, but it really isn’t that creative.

Okay, this looks fantastic. And very similar to what my Husband and I are planning in our home.

However, we’ve been going back and forth on building shelves, versus buying them pre-fab. Personally, I want to opt for pre-fab because I don’t have the skill to build them myself. He, however, grew up in a household where they did most of the modifications/building themselves. He’s convinced he can build them from scratch.

The one part that of pre-fab that I am leery of is Ikea’s more current use of cheaper materials that break quite easily/often.

For anyone that’s attempted these kind of book shelves, have you found that the shelves have started to sag in the middle from the weight of the books? If you have these bookshelves, would you use them again or opt for harder woods and build them from scratch?

Dom- I have 5 fully loaded billy bookcases. The 3 oldest are maybe 4 years– last 2 were bought just over a year ago. No sagging on any of the shelves. They cover 1-1/2 walls of my formal living room and I get a ton of comments on them.

I have Billys that have been in place for almost ten years and show no signs of saggage. However, I have a 20-year-old Billy-style case (not from Ikea) that has saggage. Solution: When you buy your Billy, get a couple of extra shelves just in case. They’re highly-store-able, and you won’t be subject to changing finish whims…we all know that brown-black is very current now, but once time passes? Brown-black might not be as simple to replace. Think, if you will: Harvest Gold, Avocado Green, etc.

Anonymous has a point. She also is not by herself. Many of the comments on the poll express the same thought. Judging by Jules replies to comments on the poll, it seems she agrees and she indicates that she will consider using 2 categories next year; hacks and repurposings or customizations.

As one commenter there says: This is great interior design, but no hack. Matthew

Love,love,love it!! Makes me want to give my books a nice home also.(They are sitting in piles on the floor) I have a kindle, too. But I love the feel and of course, the smell of traditional paper and ink books much more. Kudos.

Just kidding. This is great. Nothing against the eyesight killing ereader phenomenon, but I’m glad to see that there are still other bibliophiles who love the smell of hardcovers, fraying edges and ink.

SandyQuilts – the floors are original from 1860, pine, sanded, treated and given three coats of varnish.Anna W – I bolted the base units to the wall with angle brackets and then drilled and dowelled the top units to the bottom ones (as much for alignment as safety) and bolted them to the wall with angle brackets as well. All the top units (which are mounted upside down) were cut down to fit under the beams. Finally I joined them all together with male / female bolts. The finished structure is very rigid and you can climb up it!

To the ANONYMOUS that said this is not a hack. You should really think about the amount of work and modification this person had to do to accomplish their goal.

I applaud the acomplishment of anyone who uses any item (be it from Ikea or not) in a way that is not “as designed”. Sure this person used bookshelves as bookshelves, but they did it in such a way that was impressive and beyond the normal design for Ikea bookshelves.

Besides this hack I feel is more about inspiration and sharing of idea’s which is at the very CORE of hacking of all kinds.

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